[free652]

I wouldn't say that Russian speaking Ukrainians are "firmly" pro-Russian, I'd say its far from the truth. Where did you get that notion? At least not in Odessa.

Most people just want to have better lives. But their lives got worse with every year.

[new_test]

I grew up in south eastern Ukraine (as Russian as Ukraine gets). I'm still in touch with some of my childhood friends, and the views are pretty split in my hometown. One friend that I went to school with always posts all kinds of pro-Europe anti-Yanukovich petitions online. At the same time I just received an email from another friend this morning and his opinion is "Those fucking protesters are turning Kiev into shit, good thing we don't have that in our town. We did have some but they got shit thrown at them [literally what he said], so they sit at home now." Basically his opinion is that it's western governments trying to manipulate Ukrainians.

[Mikeb85]

> I wouldn't say that Russian speaking Ukrainians are "firmly" pro-Russian, I'd say its far from the truth.

Maybe not the best wording. While there is no doubt dissatisfaction with political and daily realities, most Ukrainians, certainly all the ones I know, still feel closer culturally to Russia than to the West.

Russian-ness and Ukrainian-ness aren't dictated by politics which are continually changing...

> Most people just want to have better lives. But their lives got worse with every year.

This is an issue in every country. Right now in half of the EU peoples' lives are getting worse (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, etc...).

There are certainly world-wide economic variables at play, but there's also the issue that some pro-West agents try to hold the country hostage every few years... Russia bailed out Ukraine, and pretty much continually props up its economy. Look what the EU did to Greece and Cyprus...